Return to 221B
by claraoswinning
Summary: Sherlock returns and fights stir. Rated T for slight lnguage.


Sherlock Holmes strode down Baker Street in the middle of the evening. He made sure to keep his head down, not wanting to attract any strange looks. The street lamps shone fluorescently and his shoes made a gentle _click click _on the pavement that resounded and died in the night air. As he always did, he noticed everything. The emerald green rhododendron growing helter-skelter in front of houses, the evangelical light the moon gave as its rays shone on random objects littered here and there. It was precisely four months after his infamous fall, and not a soul new he was alive. Not a soul, save for Molly Hooper.

She had helped him fake his death, clever as she was, and had proposed he didn't go visit anyone until the whole ordeal was mostly forgotten. But suddenly popping up alive would be a shock to anyone whether they had mostly forgotten or not. And four months without having interacted with John Watson, though he wouldn't admit it, was much more than he could take.

He pulled to a sudden stop as he met the door of 221B. Memories flooded his mind like roaring rivers. He remembered the irritating camera wielding reporters that had taken pictures of him and John on this very doorstep, remembered being pushed out over the threshold in handcuffs by Lestrade's police force. And as one takes a leap in a brief spout of bravery, Sherlock rung the bell.

Of course, he had deduced the situation at hand. Ms. Hudson left at around 3:30 P.M. ("I'm _not _your maid, you know," she would say as she cleared the tables), so John was bound to answer the door. As it happened when he was nervous (which seldom happened), his senses became sharper than his usual (which was very quite sharp). He smelled the intoxicating aroma of Chinese food from down the street, heard the din of people laughing and talking in joyous tones.

The sound of the locks being shifted out of place met his ears: John was about to open the door. Quick as anything he put up his façade, the rock solid façade of nonchalance that had so successfully shielded him. The façade that protected him from the hindrances of normal human beings: _feelings_. But as the door flung open, and he locked eyes with John Hamish Watson, his beloved façade broke like water breaking through a dam.

He quickly put up a weaker one, morphing his facial features into a look of boredom.

"I see you're still wearing your horrid jumpers," Sherlock noted, striding promptly into 221B and not daring to look at John's face.

Despite the other raging emotions inside him, he couldn't help feeling like he was finally _home_. Not much had changed since he had gone, the place was still its usual mess. He turned to the living room to find the bullet holes he had so artfully placed in the walls had been resealed, and his smiley face had been painted over. He studied the area and noticed a pink scarf lying on a chair that definitely did not belong to Mrs. Hudson.

"Still dating, are you?" Sherlock said, raising the scarf to his nose. He smelled expensive cologne that wasn't John's. "She's cheating on you, probably with a business man." He set down the scarf, traipsed nonchalantly over to the fridge and opened it.

He peered at the contents: milk, eggs, and a loaf of bread. "You threw out the eyes I kept in here," Sherlock observed, "can't imagine they'd have left a good smell." And Sherlock decided to confront what he knew he would have to face at some point, for he had dug himself in, and he would sit through the consequences that would dig him out. He looked at John.

He didn't look angry or tearful or sad, he was simply expressionless, his face a blank wall. This was the one time Sherlock _couldn't _read him, the time he most wanted to. It was worse than rage.

Then, suddenly, John said, "_You_." His voice crackled like the embers of a roaring fire and his face turned white. And then, as quick as anything, John punched Sherlock smartly in the face. Sherlock staggered back, not at all nonplussed, for he knew it was coming.

"You _bastard_," John growled, giving him a tumultuous blow in the stomach.

"John-" Sherlock began.

"For months-_months_, I thought you were dead, we all did. Mycroft hasn't been the same, Ms. Hudson crying at the _mention _of you, and I-" His voice cracked, and he punched him again.

"Just-" started the detective, but John cut him off swiftly.

"Don't!" he roared, "Fucking _don't, _Sherlock. I got _therapy_, because of you. We held your funeral, did _everything_-"

"Please, John-"

"I bet you feel high and mighty, don't you," John said, giving out a great bark of laughter that did not contain an ounce of humor. "The great _Sherlock Holmes_, you've outwitted all of us. Bet you're happy aren't you?" John aimed a blow at his nose.

Blood spurted out like a fountain and spilled down Sherlock's face in flowing drips.

"John, I know you deserve to be angry-"

"DAMN RIGHT I DESRVE IT!" John roared. "Do you know the hell I've been through? What we've all been through?" Another swift blow.

Sherlock did not even attempt to defend himself. "You know," said John, a dark smile creeping along his face, "I remember therapy, I said I lost a _best friend_." A punch.

"But, Sherlock Holmes, you're just an _arse_, a heartless arse." And these words hit Sherlock with such tumultuous impact that none of John's hits could have produced.

"Reckon that's news to you though, because contrary to your belief, _the whole bloody world doesn't revolve around you_." Another hit that sent Sherlock sprawling to the ground.

Sherlock's face was now a compendium of hues that were affiliated with the color red.

John, it seemed, was now on a roll. "I was _broken_," John commented with dark reminiscence, and his demeanor began to visibly crack. "I remember it all, you calling me." A tear trickled down John's cheek, which he hastily wiped. "You were up on Saint Bart's. I watched you as you fell, I saw your lifeless body-"

And like a monument that has grown old and has already seen its best days, John began to break down.

He fell to his knees directly in front of Sherlock, tears falling down his face in aqueous runs. Sherlock slipped his arms firmly around John as he quaked and let his tears fall freely onto Sherlock's coat. "John," he croaked, "I'm sorry."

The mere fact that Sherlock Holmes was apologizing for anything was a huge feat, but those two words held such meaning and conveyed so many things that John began to shake even more.

"Why?" John asked through tears. It was a simple question, really, but the answer was a different story.

"To protect you." John didn't have the faintest idea as to what he meant, but he continued to stay in Sherlock's embrace.

And in that moment, with the ex-army doctor and the consulting detective sprawled on the floor in each other's arms, the world seemed to be almost right again.

Almost.


End file.
